The Kirkus Prize is one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $50,000 bestowed annually to authors of fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature. It was created to celebrate the 81 years of discerning, thoughtful criticism Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large. Books that earned the Kirkus Star with publication dates between November 1, 2015, and October 31, 2016 (see FAQ for exceptions), are automatically nominated for the 2016 Kirkus Prize, and the winners will be selected on November 3, 2016, by an esteemed panel composed of nationally respected writers and highly regarded booksellers, librarians and Kirkus critics.

KIRKUS REVIEW

Arden’s supple, sumptuous first novel transports the reader to a
version of medieval Russia where history and myth coexist.

In a village in the northern woods where her father is the
overlord, Vasya, a girl who has inherited her royal grandmother’s understanding
of magic and the spirits that inhabit the everyday world, is born to a mother
who dies in childhood. Raised by a kind father, an anxious and spiteful
stepmother, a wise nurse, and four older siblings, the feisty and near-feral
girl—“too tall, skinny as a weasel, feet and face like a frog”—learns to talk
with horses and befriends the household and forest spirits that live in and
around the village. These, say the handsome young priest who has been exiled to
serve their household, are demons and deserve to be exorcised. The battle
between Vasya and driven Konstantin, who spends his free time painting icons,
fuels the plot, as does the presence of two of the old gods, who represent
death and fear. Arden has obviously immersed herself in Russian history and
culture, but as a consummate storyteller, she never lets the details of place
and time get in the way of a compelling and neatly structured narrative. Her
main story, which has the unmistakable shape of an original fairy tale, is
grounded in the realities of daily life in the time period, where the top of a
large stove serves as a bed for the elderly and the ill and the dining hall of
the Grand Prince of Moscow reeks of “mead and dogs, dust and humanity.” Even
minor characters are given their own sets of longings and fears and impact the
trajectory of the story.

Arden has shaped a world that neatly straddles the seen and the
unseen, where readers will hear echoes of stories from childhood while
recognizing the imagination that has transformed old material into something
fresh.

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